


butcher shop

by bluecedars



Series: communion [2]
Category: Bloodborne (Video Game)
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Gen, the hunter-to-corpse pipeline
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-08
Updated: 2020-12-08
Packaged: 2021-03-09 23:22:05
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 692
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27954563
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bluecedars/pseuds/bluecedars
Summary: the thing about hunting, or really any job that requires the death of its workers, is that it is a job dominated by the young.
Series: communion [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2047238
Comments: 1
Kudos: 5





	butcher shop

Gascoigne laces up his boots with shaking fingers, pulls his scarf around his throat, and carefully dismantles his axe from its perch above the vanity. It is late at night—incredibly, wildly late. Viola had adamantly refused to let him go out tonight, but it hardly mattered to him. Long after everyone else had fallen asleep, Gascoigne had shimmied out from underneath the covers. He pressed a kiss to his wife’s head and peeked in the other bedroom to make sure the girls were safe, before setting out into the living room. This god-forsaken town needs all the help it can get.

Gascoigne meets up with the local sector of hunters at the town square. There is already a beast fixed up on a straw cross, its eyes open and unseeing, its mouth filled with flies. He always greatly disliked this part of the ceremony, but he has no right to complain. He stands there, stony, as one of the hunters lights up the effigy with the touch of a torch. A flash of light, and he meets Henryk's eyes across the crowd. He gives a sardonic little smirk. Henryk cannot show a smile through his mask, but his eyes crinkle up all the same. Thank god for small miracles.

With a shout from the crowd, the long night begins.

The thing about hunting, or really any job that requires the death of it’s workers, is that it is a job dominated by the young. This was not the case in the older days. When the beastly scourge was at its newest, the church had plenty of time to spend teaching its hunters the fine art of battle. Back before Laurence had dropped off the face of the earth, you would often see him coaching the newest recruits in the streets. This resulted in more survivors, better hunters, who were more effective at controlling the plague. The issue is that now the number of beasts is higher than it’s ever been, and growing worse every day. It is no longer economically possible to value quality over quantity and still have a functioning society.

And this, Gascoigne observes bitterly as he fights his way through the newest horde, is what happens with that kind of overabundance.

Younger hunters, baby faced and emboldened by the thrill of the chase, swing blindly at the beasts. Untrained. Gascoigne watches as one of the animals lunges forward, sees the open shock of one of the little hunters for a split second before the damned thing tears his throat out. The boy was scrawnier than most, and full of false bravado. The bravest ones always tend to die first, it seems. 

The Gascoigne of years ago would have screamed at the injustice of it all, of the healing church of all things convincing these poor bastards that they even had a fighting chance. The Gascoigne of now just watches it happen, another face in the crowd, another body lost to the hunt. 

The boy falls limply to the ground, blood oozing out of his bursted jugular and pooling into the rain-slicked streets. The scent of death is overpowering, only seconded by the constant, lingering scent of wet fur that seems to follow everyone in the city. Gascoigne can smell the blood too—coppery, sickly sweet, almost fruity. It’s strangely enticing, and he almost wants to follow the beasts as they hungrily circle around the fresh corpse. Of course, the horrible creatures are just so territorial....

He shakes himself out of his reverie before he can get himself killed. It won’t do to get distracted during a hunt, especially over whatever _that_ was.

Gascoigne stumbles home hours later that night, as dawn begins to break. Wet from the rain and covered in blood, he doesn’t even try to hide the fact that he snuck out that night. Viola yells herself hoarse, tells him that she barely even recognizes him at this point, that he’s always wandering about at night and it’s going to send him to an early grave, and that he needs to take a bath this instant.

He nods dutifully, and follows exactly one of her orders.

**Author's Note:**

> fuck the monsters fuck the eldritch horrors. the scariest part of bloodborne is the countless hunters sent to death by the healing church as it collapses under its own weight


End file.
